


What Fades Away

by audreyskdramablog



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Episode Ignis Verse 2, M/M, Memory Loss, Pitioss Ruins (Final Fantasy XV), Post-Canon Fix-It, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-01-02 09:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21159245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreyskdramablog/pseuds/audreyskdramablog
Summary: Find the True King before he passes through my gate, and bring him back into the sunlight. The trial ends only when the seeker chooses to abandon the hunt or to step through my gate.“Penalties?”A portion of what you wish to find,says Etro, and the words are a knife pressed against Ignis’s throat.Death cannot befall a seeker. Every intervention will cost memories of the King of Light.Gladio’s voice comes dangerously close to a growl. “Until we no longer remember who we went down there for?”Orpheus and Eurydice + Chess with Death. Ignis descends into Pitioss to retrieve Noctis’s soul after the Dawn.





	1. Terms

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this prompt](https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/5690.html?thread=11338554), initially brought to life as a big bang project (but I dropped out), now posting because I don't have to wait on a timeline anymore. I’ve got a full outline and a chunk of the next chapter written, so let’s get this started.
> 
> Heads up! There’s a brief reference to self-harm in this chapter (not depicted, no details given). Check the end notes for more details if you need them!

Ignis knows they have arrived when Gentiana—Shiva—opens her eyes. After all these years, it is still difficult to reconcile that they are one and the same; more difficult to accept that the corpse in Ghorovas Rift is also her. The goddess is dead. She also lives, in many forms. It is a truth he must accept simply because it  _ is, _ much like he must trust that Noctis is still alive.

_ Could _ be alive, rather. The potential is there, stitched together with the magic the Astrals granted the last blood of the Oracle after his repentance and their forgiveness of those who turned their backs on the penultimate King of Lucis. While the sun rose above the horizon for the first time in ten years, Ravus coaxed the wound in Noctis’s chest closed, and then the Glacian bestowed a gentler kiss upon Noctis than the one she gave Ifrit. 

A kiss that can be undone, once they retrieve Noctis’s soul. It still leaves the beds of his fingernails and his lips blue, his skin and blood-soaked clothing frosted over. The goddess’s preserving kiss leeches out the color so everything else fades in toward gray. 

Ignis tears away his thoughts from how dead Noctis looks and reminds himself that the hardest part of their plan is still ahead of them. Or more accurately, down below.

“We have arrived.” Ravus’s voice crackles over the airship’s intercom. “I found a place to land not too far from the coordinates. Strap in.”

Ignis ghosts his fingertips along Noctis’s temple—he can feel the chill of the goddess’s magic through his gloves—before he returns to his seat at the side of the loading bay between Prompto and Gladio. His hands are steady as he slips the restraints over his shoulders and buckles them across his chest and hips.

Gentiana remains standing at Noctis’s feet, with him floating before her uplifted palms like an offering. Neither of them are at all affected by the mild turbulence the ship encounters as it makes its way down.

Gladio reaches out and rests his hand on Ignis’s knee. He doesn’t say anything, but Ignis remembers to breathe, slow and measured. It helps him refocus. They stay like that until the airship touches down and the engines cut out. Then Ignis unbuckles and rises from his seat to take his place at Noctis’s side. 

* * *

The sunlight turns the landscape into an alien wasteland. Few plants survived ten years of darkness; fewer animals made it through between the scarcity of food and the dangers of the Starscourge. The Rock of Ravatogh smokes in the distance, high above the blasted landscape. A small corner of his mind wonders how long it will take to restore the ecosystem from the seed banks and scavenged cloning tech. Ignis tucks the thoughts aside, to be dealt with later. 

It’s too bright out. His eyes water constantly, despite squinting and occasionally shading his eyes from the sun. Sunglasses and hats weren’t exactly prized discoveries during the Night, and Ignis, like the rest of humanity, will have to adjust the painful way. He would appreciate the warmth better if he didn’t know the price of it. 

Ravus leads them with a copy of the map discovered in the depths of Fenestala Manor. Gladio is on Noctis’s other side, while Prompto ranges back and forth, keeping an eye out for threats further afield. The precautions are likely unnecessary, given the daylight and the purging wave of magic that wiped out the daemons upon Noct’s sacrifice, but an overabundance of caution has saved them all, more than once. And with their connection to the Armiger severed, the weaponry they have on hand is greatly reduced.

Ravus still has his own sword; Gladio has Regis’s—now clean—against his back, positioned for an over-the-shoulder draw. Prompto has a single pistol in his hands and two magazines stuffed into his uniform’s pockets, and Ignis has one small dagger left, strapped carefully to his forearm. 

The terrain rises, the angle too steep to be called gentle, and Ravus guides them between a break in the rocks. It becomes a path not long after, high rock walls to either side and dry, packed dirt underfoot. 

They climb. Sweat beads at his temples and forehead. In contrast, the sheen of frost over Noctis is untouched by the heat of the sun, another testament to the Glacian’s power and delicate control. The path curves, the angle turning steeper. 

“We’ve got ruins,” Prompto calls out from up ahead. Ignis lifts his gaze, following the line of Prompto’s arm, and yes—there, peeking above the rock ahead, the sharp lines of stone shaped by human hands and not by natural forces. 

Ravus folds the map and tucks it away in an inner pocket of his jacket. “Nearly there. The ruins will be at the end of this path.” 

Ignis takes in a measured breath and hems in the spark those words light in him. He won’t let it push him into rushing forward, for all he hates every moment of Noctis’s iced-over stillness. The records in Fenestala Manor were maddeningly vague, but it will give them no advantage to charge ahead.

True to Ravus’s words, it doesn’t take much longer for them to reach the end of the path. Ignis spots the stone staircase leading up to a landing and the ruins proper. Gladio makes a low, rumbling sound in his throat and jerks his head toward the ruins. “The landing would be a good place to—”

A blast of frigid air cuts Gladio off and makes them both stagger. Ignis wrenches his dagger free and turns in time to see the last of Gentiana’s form fall away, leaving the ice-white version of the goddess behind. Frost races beneath his feet and up the rocks, and the air burns in his lungs. Shiva drifts upward a few centimeters so her feet no longer touch the ground, and then she bows her head, a gesture that might be reverence in a human.

Ignis spins back toward the ruins and places himself between Noctis’s body and what caught Shiva’s attention. At the top of the staircase is a woman—no. 

No human woman has a bone-white face and lips darker than the Night. No human woman could be standing with her exposed ribs sticking out through the strips of fraying cloth and a gaping cavern where her stomach should be. No human woman could be that color of corpse white-gray-blue under the sunlight. 

This is Etro, the Goddess of Death, enrobed in her funerary shroud, crowned with a halo of bone and moldering cloth, and encircled by a representation of her gate. 

As horrifying as her appearance is, her gaze—an emptiness so profound, Ignis flinches away from it—is intimately familiar. The skim of metal over his skin, claws hooked into his flesh, the lurch of his failing heartbeat, water flooding his lungs, the burning of his veins as they turned to ash under the weight of magic he wasn’t meant to bear. 

He finds himself on his knees with no conscious memory of getting there. Ignis struggles to lift his head and finds his human companions in much the same condition: weapons forgotten, collapsed under the weight of their near acquaintances with Death. Gladio breathes loud and ragged, his fingers digging into the frozen earth; Ravus curls over his Magitek arm, bent nearly in half; and Prompto trembles, caught in the grip of something only he can see. 

_ Ah, _ says Death. Her voice is a void where his heart should be.  _ I understand now why the King of Light did not pass through my gate.  _

Noctis remembered. 

Relief sweeps through Ignis. That’s another hurdle cleared in their plan. Noctis did not lose himself after chasing Ardyn into the beyond and saving them all. He is waiting for them to find him, as they promised.

He can still be returned to them.

“How—” Ravus’s voice is hoarse, more a croak than human speech. He still kneels in the dirt, but he tries to push himself upright. “I did not wake you.”

_ The price was paid by another, _ Etro says. She drifts down the staircase, her shroud fluttering in a breeze that Ignis cannot feel.  _ To allow her to escape my domain for a time, and to offer a chance at life for the True King, the Oracle relinquished her body and her last days. _

Ignis remembers Lady Lunafreya, bleeding out on the Altar of the Tidemother, her body dissolving into golden light in her brother’s embrace. And just yesterday, Lunafreya appearing in the ruins of Insomnia, limned in forgotten starlight, and calling upon the Astrals to tear down the last barrier between them and the Accursed.

Etro stops before Ravus. His shoulders bend, shudder, either from the weight of Death’s gaze or this fresh reminder of his all-consuming grief.  _ Peace, Blood of the Oracle. Your sacrifice is unneeded. _

Sacrifice?

Suspicion, sharp and disbelieving, lances through him, coupled with the memories of how Ravus deflected regarding the method for waking Etro from her slumber. The Six could be woken by prayer and sacred song; Ignis let himself be persuaded Death herself could be called forth the same way.

Ignis will take Ravus to task once this is all over. For now, he uses that anger to shove himself to his feet. His knees do not want to support him, but Ignis forces them to carry his weight as he sweeps into a low bow. 

He rehearsed this moment in his mind dozens of times. It is difficult to remember when his body is convinced he is on the brink of dying. Ignis keeps his eyes trained on the frosted ground and puts the last of his energy in getting his chest to rise and fall at a normal rhythm. “Etro,” he says, and he cannot keep the strain from his voice. “We invoke your promise to Eos and her children for access to your mercy. We are here to undergo your trial for the soul of Noctis Lucis Caelum, son of Regis and Aulea, one-hundred fourteenth King of Lucis.”

Ignis knows the moment the goddess drifts before him though he cannot hear her move and she casts no shadow upon the ground. This close to her, he thinks his heart will simply stop beating. 

_ Rise. _

He does, the word a command that resonates in his bones. This time, he cannot flinch away from her gaze, caught and held by the depth of the nothingness in her eyes. The end of Eos, the universe itself, is promised just behind them. He expects the stench of rot from her decaying form to be overwhelming, but he can smell nothing despite the state of her shroud and the heat of the day. The animal portion of his mind shrieks to flee, but he is caught in Etro’s power as surely as if it were a steel trap.

_ The King of Light returned a wayward soul to me, _ Death says.  _ Many others that were kept from my rest returned with praises for him upon their lips. I would grant my mercy for that alone. _

Etro retreats, and the world sways when she is far enough away. Gladio catches Ignis before he can hit the ground. 

“Breathe,” Gladio says, and Ignis does. He cannot stop his trembling. Prompto arrives next, steadying him from the other side. Ravus steps in last, his head high, jaw set, and Ignis knows he won’t apologize for his secret, not now. Ignis looks beyond him, to the goddess returned to the top of the stairs.

_ I grant you the opportunity to retrieve the True King’s soul and restore him to life. One soul, to bring forth another. _

“Only one of us can enter?” Prompto asks. He is pale beneath the sunburn forming across his cheeks, but his grip on Ignis’s arm is strong and his voice does not waver.

_ All are equal in my domain. One chance, no matter who they were in life. _

Gladio straightens, draws in breath, but keeps his offer behind his teeth when Ignis squeezes his arm. Caution is warranted here. 

The accounts they uncovered in tombs and ruins and forgotten places across Eos never mentioned that restriction. In retrospect, he cannot recall any that break it. Most tales involve a single person plunging into Death’s realm to bring out the one person who makes life worth living: a child, a lover, a sibling, a friend. He assumed that there were few people who could inspire anyone to undertake the trial for them, let alone have more than one person willing to do so. 

He assumed Noctis as singular in death as he was in life. It seems he erred. That’s twice he has been surprised before they’ve made it onto the steps of the ruins. What other things has he overlooked? 

He smothers the first sparks of doubt. Noctis is waiting for them. 

Ignis straightens up; his friends’ hands fall away. The freezing air from the Glacian’s presence at his back is something he can use to anchor his mind and keep the proximity of Death somewhat at bay. 

“What is the trial?”

_ A hunt, buried under Solheim’s folly. Find the True King before he passes through my gate, and bring him back into the sunlight. The trial ends only when the seeker chooses to abandon the hunt or to step through my gate.  _

It sounds simple. It cannot be or else there would be more records of this place than ancient tomb ciphers and sacred, secret records. 

“Penalties?” Ravus, of course, is the one to ask that particular question after dodging the price he intended to pay alone. 

_ A portion of what you wish to find, _ says Etro, and the words are a knife pressed against his throat.  _ Death cannot befall a seeker. Every intervention will cost memories of the King of Light. _

Gladio’s voice comes dangerously close to a growl. “Until we no longer remember who we went down there for?”

_ Yes.  _

A race, then. Against their own mistakes and their own minds. 

“Might we have a moment to consider our options?” Ignis asks.

_ The ruins will open at nightfall, _ Etro says. And then she is simply gone, vanished without sound, and with her goes the certainty of their deaths. 

Ignis draws in a ragged breath—so do the others—and presses his hand to his chest. A crushing weight has been lifted, though his heart hammers against his ribs.

A moment later and the chill in the air vanishes. Ignis glances back to confirm that Shiva has resumed her more demure appearance as Gentiana. Her eyes are closed again, and the frost around them all begins to melt.

* * *

“It can’t be me,” Prompto says while Ravus heads back to the airship to grab supplies. “Six, I wish I could. I’d fight you both for the chance. But I—” He rakes his hand through his hair, a gesture that’s a certain giveaway for his agitation. “We’ve got  _ one _ shot at this and I just didn’t know him long enough. If I go in, there’s not a lot of margin for error compared to you two.  _ Fuck, _ I should have just introduced myself to him in elementary school instead of being so—”

Gladio squeezes Prompto’s shoulder; Prompto hisses out a breath but continues in a leveler tone, “Noct deserves the best chance. That’s not me.”

When they were younger, Prompto leaned heavily into self-deprecation; that tendency has transformed into an honest, and accurate, ability to assess his own strengths and shortcomings. Admitting he isn’t the right one to rescue Noctis clearly causes him distress, but he did it anyway, because some of his most admirable qualities are his selflessness and his willingness to swallow his pride in order to get the best outcome.

Ignis looks to Gladio; Gladio turns his face toward Noctis, who still floats before Gentiana’s open palms. “It ought to be me,” Gladio says. His voice is softer at the edges, for all the pain lurking in his words. “I’m still standing when he’s like this.”

“Gladio—”

“I spent a good part of my childhood resenting Noct, thinking he wasn’t worthy of being king someday. Wasn’t worthy of having me as his Shield.” Gladio turns back and looks Ignis straight on, his gaze honest and raw. “And depending on the memories I lose, that might be all I’m left with. Noct deserves someone who won’t turn around and leave him.”

“Well, then,” Ignis begins, and he has to take a moment to manage his relief. “I’m glad I won’t have to incapacitate either of you to claim the honors.”

* * *

It is a little unnerving, watching the sun set for the first time in years, no matter that Ignis has as much faith that it will rise again as he did that Noctis would return. He had forgotten how brilliant the sky could look as the sun sinks beneath the horizon and what it was like to see stars appear in the deepening dark one by one. 

There will be other sunsets, and better sunrises, Ignis tells himself firmly. Ones that he can share with Noctis. 

The seal on the other side of the weathered metal bars flares to life once the last of the color drains overhead. Ravus grips Ignis’s hand and offers a typically restrained, “Take care.”

Gladio slings an arm around Ignis’s shoulders and pulls him in close enough their temples bump against each other. “Don’t come back empty-handed now, all right?”

“Good luck in there.” Prompto throws his arms around Ignis’s waist. He slips his hand into one of Ignis’s jacket pockets as he draws away. “But just in case.”

When they fall back, gives them a small, reassuring smile. More for their comfort, than his. “I shall strive to keep your waiting to a minimum,” he tells them. “Watch over him while I’m gone.”

“We will.”

“You can count on us, Iggy.”

“Go,” Gladio says. “We’ve got this.”

So Ignis nods once, sharply, and slips through the gap in the metal bars. The lines on the seal glow blue-white with the magic they contain, a magic Ignis still does not understand. He presses his right hand to the center of the seal, and the ground beneath his feet sinks into the darkness of Pitioss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Etro says that Ravus’s “sacrifice” was unnecessary to wake her; Ignis assumes this means Ravus intended to harm himself (or even die) to do so. No further discussion happens and no details are provided as Ignis intends to yell at Ravus about keeping a secret like that once the fic is over.


	2. Folly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you will forgive the delay in exchange for a 9k chapter. <3
> 
> **Heads up, guys!** Ignis takes advantage of the fact that he is literally not allowed to stay dead in this chapter. If you need more details, see the end notes.

The platform comes to a stop with a clang of whatever ancient mechanism controlled its rise and fall. Solheim had a number of variances in its architectural styles—unsurprising for a nation that spanned continents and centuries—but this is the first one to confront him with blocks of glowing red spikes descending from the ceiling at regular intervals, like pistons in a cursed factory. If the stench of ozone is any indication, he’ll have to worry as much about being burned as he will being impaled. 

The timing is easy enough, almost trivial. A quick dash beneath as the spikes head back up, though Ignis takes a more cautious pace up the narrow stone ramp behind them. It may not look dangerous yet, but the likelihood of how often Etro will need to intervene is a key part of the trial itself. He will not fail Noct because he was so arrogant he let down his guard. 

The ramp opens onto a landing built of stone blocks. Ignis breathes in the tomb-still air and looks around at one of the more bizarre rooms he has had the pleasure of entering in his hunt across Eos.

There is a statue of a man on the left, naked from the waist up. Ahead of him, two pillars in such disarray it’s impossible to tell if the blocks were intentionally placed that way or if they’ve miraculously withstood gravity all these millenia. Past them, in the wall opposite the entrance, is a gold design with an outline that suggests a door, though there are no handles to indicate it can be opened. There is a large ball, or perhaps a boulder is a better term, shaped roughly from some dark, unfamiliar metal, nestled—in? as part of?—the ramp leading to the main floor below. To the right, a caged area around another statue, illuminated by a spotlight Ignis can’t find the source of, and a large block of stone sliding in and out with far less noise than he thinks possible.

Sprinkled throughout are bits of crumbled rock, fallen metal beams, and a rust-red substance that, upon closer inspection, does not smell entirely like blood. Ignis does not touch it.

There is no obvious path forward, so Ignis steels himself for careful exploration.

The room contains an intricate layer of puzzles, each leading right into the next. If Ignis were here simply for exploration, it would be a pleasure to spend hours here, trying to figure out how each of the mechanisms work, marveling over the pathways that unfurl unexpectedly, admiring the cleverness in Solheim’s design and the strength and balance that are required to have a chance to defeat it. But he is here to find Noctis, and these puzzles are a barrier between him and Noct’s only chance at life. 

By the time he knocks his way out of the first room with the boulder, Ignis is starting to understand the logic behind the puzzles. He idly scuffs his shoes against the ground to scrape the accumulated rust-red muck from the soles while he surveys the room now open to him. This space seems larger, between the higher ceiling and how much nothingness opens up at his feet. The boulder, a square platform with a metal beam at one edge, and two small, circular pillars make a trail toward another platform at the far end. The jumps will require precision and balance, but Ignis is no stranger to either, and the distances all look manageable. Even if they’re surrounded on all sides by a void deep enough his flashlight cannot illuminate the ground that must be there.

Ignis allows himself a moment to mentally review the steps he must take. Then he makes the first small jump to the boulder—and gasps when his left foot, his shoe still too slick from the mess, slides out from under him. Ignis drops to a knee and scrabbles to right himself with his hands, but his balance is too far off center, and he topples, sideways, into the dark.

_ Ignis angles his body so Gentiana disappears in his peripheral vision. Unlike the others, Ignis can’t ask her to step back to give him a bit of privacy. He will suffer a little embarrassment rather than risk any chance of harm to Noctis. _

_ The frost on Noct’s eyelashes catches the sunlight. Ignis reaches out to cover Noct’s clasped hands with one of his own. The Ring of the Lucii left its mark on both of them.  _

_ “Thank you for remembering,” Ignis murmurs. Perhaps it is too sentimental to say the words aloud, when Etro’s very existence is proof that Noct’s soul is far from here. “We’ve had a few surprises, but nothing we can’t handle.” _

_ Shiva’s ice radiates cold like an oven radiates heat, and it cuts through his glove and numbs his palms, his fingers, in no time at all. Ignis endures it anyway, more fool him, to scrape up comfort from something that causes him discomfort, edging toward pain. He had so little time to touch, to hold Noctis, upon his return, that even with Noct gone, the cold seems like a small price to pay to maintain contact. _

_ “We don’t know what memories Etro will take, beyond that they will be of you,” he continues. “And we don’t know how strict that will be, if it will be memories of us together, or of us talking about you, or even me just thinking about you. That’s why I’m saying goodbye to you early. I’ll go to sleep soon so that I will be rested for the trial, and Gentiana will use the opportunity to take you from my line of sight. The others will wake me before the ruins open, and with a little luck, I’ll remember what they say to me before I go in.” _

_ Ignis runs his thumb along Noct’s knuckles, a small gesture that used to end with Noctis lacing their fingers together. But Noct’s fingers are locked, frozen over his stomach in a mockery of his ancestors’ final rest.  _

_ It will not be final, not for Noctis. Not yet. _

_ Ignis has always preferred to be discreet with his affection, but this time he does not check to ensure that no one is paying them attention. He leans down to press a chaste kiss to Noct’s forehead. The cold stings his lips, a promise of its own.  _

_ “I will find you,” he whispers. “Wait for me, Noct.” _

Ignis lands hard on his feet, and the jolt that goes from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head is nothing compared to the overwhelming feeling of  _ loss _ that rips through him in its wake. It’s as if someone has taken a spoon to the inside of his ribs and scraped out everything that matters. He keeps to his feet, barely, despite the way he gasps for breath and how long it takes the stone around him to swim back into focus. 

He remembers the slip, the fall. Yet he is back at the threshold to this new room as if nothing happened, except for the unshakable knowledge that something has been torn from him. That is Etro’s intervention. 

But what did he lose? Surely not— 

His mind darts, skips from one cherished memory to the next, before the folly of that strategy hits him. How could he find the new hole in his life if he goes from one highlight to the next without maintaining the continuity between them? A methodical exploration would be more reliable.

Ignis closes his eyes and mentally traces his steps back from this moment until he hits the gap. It doesn’t take long—the gap is there, wide and obvious and utterly empty, between Etro’s appearance and bidding farewell to Gladio, Prompto, and Ravus outside the ruins. He does not remember Noctis in that moment of farewell at all, has no recollection of Gentiana either. 

Where were they?

Something like fear snakes its way around Ignis’s heart. But no—he remembers saying  _ Watch over him while I’m gone. _ Even though he doesn’t know where Noctis is, he must be near the others. They have Noct’s body. He wouldn’t have said that to them otherwise.

It takes a few moments more for Ignis to regain his composure, though there is nothing he can do for the unease that settles in his gut. 

Etro said each intervention would cost  _ memories, _ plural. Ignis found one section of hours stolen from him—who is to say there are not more?

He pulls himself away from that line of questioning before he can get lost in it. It is enough to know that Etro will take as she promised. It is up to him to limit what opportunities he offers her.

* * *

Patience is his greatest ally here. Ignis makes it through the next room, with its giant rotating ball, safely. The next stretch of puzzles involve an alarming number of blocks with those burning spikes affixed to them, but that is a matter of memorizing sequences quickly and staying on his toes. 

Several difficult leaps, careful balancing acts, and large doorways later, Ignis finds himself facing a rotating cylinder with a cut-out that would carry him for a few seconds before it undoubtedly tried to dump him into the endless black of Pitioss. But there is no way to see what is on the other side or if there even is a place where he could safely land. Yet there seems to be no other path forward; he does not see any way to open the other doors in the main hall behind him. 

Ignis steadies his breathing and commits to acting on instinct. The next time the cut-out appears, he steps upon it. He braces himself so he won’t lose his balance as the stone beneath his feet becomes the stone behind him and as the stone in front of him becomes the ground. 

To his immediate relief, there is solid ground on the other side, and Ignis makes it easily. It is a short-lived victory, as there is yet another cylinder after he climbs the next ramp. The architects of this place were very clever when it came to their escalations, so Ignis watches the cylinder rotate three more times before he tries.

This time there is a gap and a narrower ledge on the other side, but Ignis makes the jump. From there, the path forward is obvious: yet another rotating cylinder, and one he will have to jump to land upon. 

Ignis waits for the right timing and then leaps across the gap. He lands on the cut-out, readies himself as the cylinder shifts under his feet to reveal the other side—and too late realizes that there is a metal ledge leading to a pathway high above and nothing else but a smooth expanse of stone.

He jumps, but his desperate hands cannot reach, and Ignis drops into the dark.

_ Ignis braces Noct’s shoulders so Gladio can work the sword out of Noct’s chest with as little additional damage as possible. The squelching, wrenching sound the sword makes on its way out still causes bile to rise in Ignis’s throat. He chokes it back down, but he can’t miss the blood that starts seeping out the wound and soaking Noct’s shirt. _

_ Gladio drops the sword over the edge and scoops Noctis up in both arms. Ignis follows him and the blood dripping down the curved steps, to the landing, where Prompto has finished clearing a place big enough for Ravus to do his work. _

_ “Put him here,” Ravus orders, sweeping his hand out in front of him.  _

_ Gladio sinks to his knees and places Noctis on the stone with infinite care. Ignis crashes down beside him. He resists the urge to reach out and take Noct’s hand for fear of interfering. That does not stop him from noticing the burn where the Ring of the Lucii should have been. _

_ Ravus presses his right hand to the hole in Noct’s chest, heedless of the blood, and closes his eyes. Light gathers around his hand, warm and golden. It is nearly as warm as the first sunlight from the east. _

Ignis lands hard on his feet and catches himself against a wall with his left forearm. He presses his right hand to his mouth as he struggles with his nausea. The sense of loss is just as bad as the first time, and he squeezes his eyes shut and breathes slowly through his nose until his stomach no longer feels like it is about to revolt. 

Ignis retraces his path mentally again. He finds the first gap right where he remembers it being, and the second comes right behind it. He remembers Etro in all her terrible glory. Then another empty abyss until Noctis settles himself on his throne and the Lucii—

Panic shoots through him as his brain tries to fill in the gap. Was Ravus able to do his part? Did Shiva come when called upon, as promised? Did the sun finally rise?

He doesn’t  _ remember.  _

It takes a colossal effort for Ignis to wrench the panic from his mind, and it still leaves his heart racing. He wouldn’t be in these ruins if their plan had failed. It must have worked. It  _ must _ have worked. He still remembers saying  _ Watch over him while I’m gone  _ and Gladio and Prompto and Ravus bidding him well. 

It takes longer than Ignis would like to calm himself enough he feels like he can truly  _ think _ again. He’s lost the space of time between entering the ruins and Etro’s appearance, and then the space after Etro to the throne room. There are, possibly, other segments of memory lost to him, but Ignis has no reliable way of identifying them. 

He may, however, have the start of a worrying pattern. If he keeps losing memories, he could very well forget  _ why _ he is in these ruins in the first place and what he is meant to do here. And there is no guarantee that this pattern of memory loss will hold. The goddess takes her price from him, and he can only guess what the cost was afterward. 

His entire life is centered on Noctis. He knows there isn’t a day he hasn’t thought of Noctis since their introduction in childhood. Etro could take it all.

Ignis straightens up and opens his eyes. It feels silly to say it aloud, but he will make a fool of himself if it increases his chance of remembering. “I believe I am losing memories in reverse chronological order,” he says loudly, taking the opportunity to enunciate every word. “I have entered these ruins for a purpose, and I must not leave by myself.”

Perhaps if he doesn’t say Noct’s name aloud, it will be enough. Ignis clings to that hope and the memory of what he just said, and readies himself to try again.

* * *

The next section involves slabs of flooring that move on their own in between walls of burning spikes, and the pathways are convoluted enough to block Ignis’s lines of sight so he can’t plan more than a few seconds ahead. But he makes it through anyway and follows the pathway up on top of those walls, jumping from one safe location to the next. Ignis admiration for the architects’ cleverness has soured now, and he wonders with no small degree of bitterness why, precisely, the people of Solheim even went to these lengths to build such a place.

He can think of absolutely no reasonable explanation why the next room has to contain a moving wall covered with spikes and adorned with a giant, grinning skull.

Ignis manages to clear the room eventually, but his triumph doesn’t last long. The next room opens up into a space wide enough that the light clipped to his jacket can’t provide a clear picture of what all it contains, and there is no obvious route to take. He steps closer to the edge, and when he looks down, he finds a small outcropping. His flashlight can’t penetrate the blackness beyond it, but it is the only thing that looks like a possible way to progress.

He drops down carefully as there’s little room to recover if he botches the landing. Ignis looks around again, and disbelief washes over him when he spots another stretch of stone below him. It’s wider than this one but so steeply angled that Ignis has no idea if he’ll be able to catch himself on the slope or if he’ll roll down it into the unknown. These ruins have required more than one reckless slide from him, and there truly doesn’t appear to be any other option. 

Ignis takes a deep breath and drops off the ledge, but when his feet hit stone, there’s a horrible dragging, lurching sensation in his stomach and chest that makes it feel like the world has titled on its axis somehow. He falls to his hands and knees—but no further. Ignis looks around, disbelieving and uncertain, struggling to ascertain what has happened. It feels as if—

He looks back over his shoulder, toward the ledge he dropped from, and does not understand how it can be tilted at that angle.

—as if gravity itself has shifted.

Or something akin to it. Ignis discovers this quickly, as he traverses what looks like impossible angle after impossible angle and jumps from one ridiculous stretch of stone to another. The shift is never kind enough to make whatever surface he is on flat, but it is just enough that he can actually climb or control his descent. 

It is enough to be obvious every time, which is how he knows he’s made the wrong decision on one particular leap before he falls into the dark.

_ “Kings of Lucis, come to me!” _

_ And they do, their weapons first, raining down from the cracked ceiling hard enough that even though they’re nothing but outlines made from the Crystal’s magic and light, the impact shudders through the stone beneath Ignis’s feet. The Lucii come next, materializing after their weapons. King Regis stands beside the throne, his back to his own son, and Ignis cannot find the heart to blame him. _

_ There are no grand speeches. No apologies. The only warning Ignis has is the heartbeat Noctis seeks him out from across the room. Noct’s half-formed smile vanishes when the first Lucii runs him through. _

_ His muffled cry of agony shoves Ignis toward his breaking point. It comes again and again, and each one tears bloody strips from Ignis’s composure. Ravus clamps his magitek hand on Ignis’s shoulder, a failsafe in case he hits that breaking point. _

_ And then only King Regis is left. The throne room is silent save for the scrape of steel on stone as Noctis, drooping on his throne, offers his father’s sword back to him. Whatever it is that Noctis whispers, it is too soft for Ignis to make out. Noctis does not have the strength to lift his head for all that Ignis wills him to look up a final time. _

_ Regis takes up his sword and kills his son.  _

_ Noctis—his body—immediately slumps, as much as it can when over a meter of steel pins it in place. Ignis has no trouble hearing Noct’s death rattle and the awful silence after. _

_ A strangled sound escapes Ignis’s throat. Ravus, merciless, yanks him back when he shifts forward. “Be still!” _

_ Ravus alone is not enough to hold him, but Gladio and Prompto are there, too, and for all their tears, they help Ravus hold him back. Something inside Ignis unravels, shatters, and he strains against their hands. Noctis. Noct. He can’t— _

_ The Ring of the Lucii flickers on Noctis’s hand, and then the world burns white. _

Ignis stumbles his landing and collapses to his hands and knees. Tears burn hot tracks down his face and his breaths come in sharp, ragged gasps. He thought he knew  _ loss _ before with his previous mistakes, but this grief threatens to unmake the very core of him. He shudders and scrabbles for his memories, desperate to find the outline of what has been ripped from him. The ruins. Saying goodbye to his companions. A gap. Etro laying out her terms. 

And then a great long stretch of emptiness until he finds the view of the long-fallen imperial blockade and the devastation of Insomnia’s Wall in the distance. 

He remembers: Noctis came back, as foretold. And they were on their way to Insomnia, the four of them, but no word from Ravus since his departure but a promise he would meet them on the Citadel steps. He remembers the plan. Reason says he would not be here in these ruins if it had failed.

Ignis still takes a few moments to collect himself, to clean his face. Once he no longer feels like he is on the verge of falling apart, he pushes himself back up into a careful crouch.

“I am losing memories in reverse chronological order,” he says again. “I have entered these ruins for a purpose, and I must not leave by myself.”

* * *

He retraces his steps methodically. Etro, so far as Ignis can tell, has spared his memories during the trial. It is a small mercy, and one he hopes will not be ripped away from him. The idea of being stuck in a loop, of reaching a point of failure and then hitting it over and over again without knowing and losing memories of Noctis each time is awful enough he has to take a moment to regroup. 

When Ignis reaches the point he last fell, he takes a long moment to reassess the options before him. After discarding the one he knows won’t work, there is really only one other possibility. Ignis grimaces at the rusting metal bars that don’t look as if they’ll hold him and makes a leap for it. 

He lands safely this time and squeezes his eyes shut as the world subtly reorients itself. It doesn’t quite help the headache he can feel starting to form at his temples. Ignis never considered himself prone to motion sickness, but this section of the ruins and its constant reorientation makes him sympathetic for how unhappy Prompto was on particularly long drives. Gladio always had an iron stomach—he could read in the Regalia no matter the weather—and Noctis always took the opportunity to doze whenever one presented itself.

Noct.

He must be dead. If he weren’t, Ignis wouldn’t be here in these ruins. Etro would not have laid out the terms she did if he were not. The vision in Altissia—had it been true?  _ Precisely _ true? Had he watched Noctis finally ascend to his throne only to be struck down by his own ancestors?

It is a mistake to be distracted by what he no longer knows. Ignis miscalculates the trajectory of his next jump, tries to catch the stone edge with his hands, and plummets when the rock gives way beneath his fingers.

_ Noct’s hitching breath is warm and familiar against his collarbone, and for a moment Ignis lets himself pretend that it hasn’t been ten years since he held Noctis like this. But he can’t maintain the fiction long—they don’t fit together the way they used to, though that did not prevent them from trying.  _

_ Noct’s hair is longer, and his beard softly scratches against Ignis’s skin. His body is different, broader, harder, even though Noctis isn’t the one who survived a decade of darkness. The shadows beneath his eyes are different from the ones anyone else in Eos wears; they are the remnants of Bahamut’s Reflection and the weight of knowledge: Noct’s death is the only hope the world has. _

_ Ignis knows he has changed, too, though he wasn’t quite aware of the extent of it until Noctis ran his hands over all the new-to-him scars, cataloguing them one by one until Ignis couldn’t stand the sorrow piling on Noct’s shoulders anymore and pulled him down into a kiss.  _

_ One thing hasn’t changed: Noctis is quiet and affectionate in the aftermath. He nuzzles into Ignis’s shoulder and Ignis reaches up to cup the back of his head. Ignis doesn’t think anything is amiss until Noct takes a deep breath and his body tenses as if he’s bracing for a blow.  _

_ “Ignis,” Noctis whispers against his skin. “Promise me something.” _

_ He swallows his first response and ghosts his fingertips down the back of Noct’s neck, wanting to soothe him. Hoping they won’t end up arguing again about whether a chance at life for Noctis is worth risking theirs. “What is it?” _

_ “If you can’t bring me back,” Noct says, the words spilling out in a rush, “you can’t blame yourself, okay? That goes for all of you.” _

_ “Noct—” _

_ “I know I can’t stop you from trying.” Noctis holds him tighter, as if he could press the last desire of his heart onto Ignis’s. “My death—whatever happens, it isn’t your fault.” _

Ignis staggers dangerously before the ruins figure out which way gravity should be fixed. He breathes hard and does not know why his chest  _ aches. _ He fights the urge to curl in around himself protectively by focusing on his mental search again. 

The ruins. Saying goodbye to his companions. A gap. Etro laying out her terms. And then a great long stretch of emptiness until he and his companions pile into Talcott’s truck and signal for the hunters at the gate. 

“I’m losing memories in reverse chronological order,” Ignis says once he can breathe steadily again. “I entered these ruins on purpose, and I must not leave by myself.”

He cannot help but wonder how many more failures he has until he forgets who it is he is looking for.

* * *

Ignis gets a brief respite on relatively solid ground, enough that his motion sickness abates a little. The next section of the ruins is surprisingly dark. His light struggles to show him the way ahead, but for all its limited visibility, this part is less treacherous. It is more like a puzzle and less like a trap. He has a few false starts trying to find the pathway through, but this stretch is a little more forgiving than the previous one. 

The section ends at a platform and a narrow gap between walls that climb so high he has no idea where they end. Ignis isn’t enthusiastic about squeezing through, and the stone stairs give way to a narrow, rusting metal beam beneath his feet. It isn’t so sharply angled that the world has to tilt to compensate, and for that he’s grateful. 

He emerges from between the walls and onto a flat stretch of the metal beam, but his attention is caught by the gigantic statue of a woman. Her hands are stretched over her head, the stone rendition of cloth drapes artfully to guard her modesty, and her body is attached to some kind of frame, though Ignis can’t imagine how it provides any real support for the actual weight of the stone. If there is a base beneath the frame, it is lost to the darkness. 

It reminds him, a little, of some of the classical Lucian depictions of Eos. The statue is the only thing properly illuminated in the room, and the room itself is so large that Ignis can barely make out the walls to his left and right. He can’t see anything behind the statue, and the darkness above leaves the ceiling as much of a mystery as whatever is down below. This statue, this  _ place, _ feels important, but Ignis can’t immediately see why.

There is only one path to continue: the metal beam, broken in places and angling sharply upward. He cautiously places his foot on the first angled section, but he doesn’t feel the answering pull of a different gravity. It is with a small measure of relief that Ignis finds handholds on the metal and starts climbing upward. 

His relief doesn’t last long. When Ignis leaps onto the next slab of stone, it  _ rotates _ beneath his feet alarmingly, though the world subtly reorients just before he can slide off it. The stone stops moving a bare moment later. Ignis’s heartbeat takes a moment and two long breaths to steady before he resumes working his way through the room. 

It takes him by surprise when the entire wall rotates, longer this time, long enough for him to realize that gravity isn’t keeping up. Ignis makes a desperate leap for what should be the floor next and falls short, through the gap.

_ Ignis glances toward the door when he hears footsteps, more out of habit than any real expectation as the long-since repurposed diner is one of the focal points of Hammerhead. It has been several hours since they last got an update from Talcott, and travel times are at best estimates because of the state of the roads. Another update isn’t due for half an hour, which gives the three of them plenty of time to continue their strategy discussion. _

_ So it comes as a surprise when Ignis hears footsteps and glances left on reflex. It’s—Noctis. With longer, almost scraggly hair and sporting a beard, but Noct’s clothes look as if they were untouched by the passage of time despite his body aging. The contrast between the two is unnerving, moreso because Noct’s face is an exact match for the one Ignis remembers catching a glimpse of during his vision in Altissia. _

_ “Noct!” Prompto scrambles to his feet, and Gladio stands at a more measured pace. _

_“Hey, guys,” Noctis says in a very deliberate show of nonchalance. His voice, a little rougher, deeper than Ignis remembered but still unmistakably _him, _makes_ _Ignis’s heart soar. It takes a considerable portion of his willpower to stay where he is rather than rush to Noctis immediately. He certainly does not have enough willpower leftover to keep himself from smiling faintly. _

_ There can be no mistake. The time has truly come—to save the world, and to save Noctis. “We have been waiting for you,” Ignis says, and he is proud of how steady his voice is. “Welcome back.” _

Ignis drops onto the top of the metal beam and crashes to one knee and both hands before he can lose his balance and fall again. Something almost like  _ joy _ swells in his chest, and Ignis does not know why it is there. He should not be happy about more memories lost, and yet the feeling lingers, inexplicable. 

It fades when he repeats his mental search and finds nothing between Etro’s appearance and a discussion with Gladio about which of them should accompany a group of hunters to clear out the reapers south of Lestallum. For a sickening moment, Ignis is uncertain if Noctis returned, but reason eventually wins out. He still remembers saying  _ Watch over him while I’m gone _ at the entrance to the ruins. He still remembers the plan they made to bring Noctis back to life after his ascension. He still remembers all the ways the world has changed after nine years of darkness. 

When he’s more certain of his balance, Ignis climbs back onto his feet. He immediately notices that the stone he first jumped to is flat again, even though he’s sure that last rotation, the one that sent him to his death, should have left it at a wildly different angle.

Ignis studies the stone for a moment before he makes the jump for a second time. And once again, the stone rotates after he lands and stops just after gravity shifts. 

It is as if the room has reset itself in that space between his fall and his landing. From his perspective, the latter immediately followed the former; for the first time, Ignis must consider the possibility that they did not. That he was—gone—long enough for the mechanism that moved the pieces of this room to return everything to its original position.

“I’m losing memories in reverse,” Ignis tells the statue of the goddess. “I entered these ruins on purpose, and I must not leave by myself.”

* * *

Ignis leaps onto the statue’s chest and grabs the stone cloth when the goddess sinks backward beneath his feet. Whatever mechanism controls her fall is loud and slow, and the impact shudders through his feet when her movement abruptly ends. Something echoes behind him and below, and the faintest gust of air brushes the back of his neck. It brings the scent of something damp and rotting with it.

Now that the goddess is angled differently, it’s easy to see that her raised arms form a path he’s meant to follow. Ignis glances behind him briefly, but all he can see is the rest of the statue’s body and an unrelenting darkness. So he climbs instead. It takes a moment for him to recognize that she holds a sword between both hands.

That detail gives him pause. He is hardly an expert in art or art history, but he cannot think of a time when Eos was depicted as weilding a sword. And are those—bracelets? or manacles?—around her wrists? Perhaps it was a common artistic theme in the days of Solheim, when they sought to conquer the gods themselves and saw the world they lived on as something to be tamed. 

He climbs onto the guard and takes stock of his only option for progression: the blade. It, too, is made of stone. The blade is about as wide as his hips, if he had to guess, and no more steeply angled than the rest of these rooms. It will be a challenge to keep his balance that entire distance, but if it comes to the worst, he can crawl his way down.

Ignis grips the guard and swings himself over it. His feet find the sword and brace against the stone. It does not feel as steep as it looks, and he carefully turns himself around and lets go of the guard. 

He gets a few meters down the sword when gravity shifts again, and Ignis’s feet  _ slide. _ He manages to control his fall enough to land backward instead of toppling to the left or right, but he cannot slow his descent. Ignis pulls his dagger free and tries to jam it into the walls when they rise up around him, but the force of impact tears the weapon from his hand. He then tries to brace his arms against the walls, but all that does is tear the fabric of his gloves and jacket and his skin.

There’s a platform at the end of the sword, and it rushes up to meet him.

_ Something moves in Ignis’s periphery, and he glances up in time to catch Gentiana stepping into the tiny room that makes his office in Lestallum. Shiva. He has been in other gods’ presences before, seen their might and their fury, but there is something about this one that truly unnerves him. Perhaps it is how human she looks, when she chooses. _

_ “Hand of the King,” she says, and Ignis rises to his feet. Even though her eyes are closed, her gaze cuts straight through to his heart. “The Blood of the Oracle has found the key you seek.” _

_ Relief threatens to knock Ignis off his feet. He breathes deeply to steady himself. “Truly? Where is it?” _

_ “The mortal path to Death lies at the foot of the Pyreburner’s grave.” _

_ Ravotaugh, then, or somewhere in the vicinity of it. He wonders what she means by  _ mortal  _ path, but if there are ways only gods can walk, then they are of little use to him. “And what of your cooperation?” _

_ Gentiana smiles. “It is as the lady wishes. Prepare, O Hand of the King, for the Light waxes full, and the King of the Stone shall wake.” _

Ignis lands hard on his feet and is bewildered by the relief that’s trying to drown him. He glances back at the deadly slope that took him by surprise, that took more of his memories, and doesn’t know what about that wild, uncontrolled descent should make him feel this way. He lifts his arms to examine them and his hands—and he  _ remembers _ those awful seconds of pain as the stone bit into them. 

It is as if it never happened. 

No, it happened. His dagger is gone. Ignis searches his memory again, retraces the path that led him here to the end of a goddess’s sword, and fumbles, uncertain, at the gaps he finds. He bade his friends farewell. He remembers the goddess and her bargain. 

But where  _ is _ he? Or rather, where are the ruins he has found himself in? They must be the place that Etro’s domain intersects with the living world, but no amount of thought is enough to pull the location out of his memory. In the seven years he roamed Eos, searching for the information they need to save Noctis from his fate, Ignis cannot remember another place that looks like this.

Ignis shoves the questions and the creeping doubt aside. It does not matter where he is. What matters is that he must find Noctis and bring him back into the light. 

“I’m losing memories in reverse,” Ignis says as he takes a step forward. There’s a small lurch and a grinding sound as the ground rises up like an elevator beneath him. “I entered these ruins, and I must not leave by myself.”

* * *

Ignis peers over the ledge. Down, far below, the tipped-over goddess statue is bathed in light. She is small enough that Ignis refuses to guess how far above her he is. More than enough for a fall to kill him, more than enough for Etro to wrench her payment from him. 

He climbs the metal beam upward, only to be halted partway by a statue large enough the beam shouldn’t support it. It’s another horned, kneeling man, and Ignis cannot tell if the path continues beyond him. Ignis glances around, but there don’t appear to be any other beams within his range to jump onto. Or if there are, the metal is dull enough it doesn’t reflect his light. 

The ruins have forced him to jump onto such statues before, so climbing one must not be out of the realm of possibility. Ignis jumps and manages to grab one of the horns with both hands. He swings his legs up, intending to find purchase on one of the statue’s arms to leverage himself up and over.

But metal screeches, the horn gives way beneath his weight, and Ignis plunges into the dark.

_ “The account is too fragmentary,” Ignis says, pushing back from the translated pages scattered across his desk. “There’s nothing here about how Oracle Cassia woke Etro to gain entrance to the goddess’s domain, much less what trials King Justus underwent to retrieve his daughter’s soul.” _

_ Ravus had these translations in his possession for nearly two weeks before he could ferry them to Lestallum. He likely has them memorized by this point. “Considering that Justus failed, that gives more credence to its veracity. The writer wouldn’t have known what happened during the trial as Justus never returned.” He leans in over the desk and picks up one of the papers. “But this is the third account where an Oracle is explicitly mentioned as waking Etro before the trial happens, and the second found within a Tenebraen temple.” _

_ “Who is the writer?” _

_ “It’s attributed to Cassia’s daughter, Drusa.” _

_ Ignis tugs the paper back out of Ravus’s hand and glances over it again, just in case there is something he has missed that they need to know to save Noctis. “And you’ve found nothing of Cassia’s writing?” _

_ “Not from this period,” Ravus says. “Her own writings diminished as she aged—historians suspect arthritis was to blame, among other conditions—and she passed soon after this event, if it is true.” His next words come out clipped, and he glances away from Ignis briefly. “I think it likely her health was too poor to call upon Etro safely.” _

_ Like the Lady Lunafreya was in too poor health to call upon Leviathan safely. In some of his bitterer, more vulnerable moments, Ravus admitted that it was unlikely she would have survived much longer even without spending the last of her vitality healing Noctis.  _

_ Something of his thoughts must show in his expression because Ravus gives him a  _ look.  _ “I am in much better health than a seventy-six-year-old woman from a thousand years ago. Lunafreya made her first covenant when she was fourteen and likely would have lived several more years had she been able to recover between the rest of them. I can handle a second covenant.” _

_ “You know how to wake Etro?” Ignis frowns at the papers. There is no information in them about that, only that Cassia called upon the goddess and woke her from her slumber. _

_ Ravus makes a dismissive noise. “Like the rest of the Six. A few alterations to the prayer and the song, but that is trivial compared to finding the correct location. We must find the place Etro’s domain intersects with this world if we are to have any chance of saving your king.” _

Ignis catches himself before he can topple forward and over the ledge. He was thinking—something, something vitally important, but whatever it is, it is gone, leaving just the weight of its significance in his chest.

He looks around reflexively for his companions to check if they fell as well—no. His memory wavers for a moment, then solidifies. No, he left Gladio and Prompto and Ravus at the entrance to these ruins. 

That can’t be right. He hasn’t done solo runs like this for years. There are no circumstances in which the three of them would voluntarily stay behind while he—

_ Watch over him while I’m gone. _

Ignis swallows thickly as the memory slides back into place. The scraps he has are puzzle pieces, roughly hewn, forced into slots that don’t quite match up. 

He remembers that Noct’s death is necessary. But that it does not have to be permanent. What had been a wild theory must be true, if he can trust his memory of Etro granting them access to her mercy. 

“I’m losing memories,” Ignis says. He hangs onto the sound of his own voice, trying to anchor himself with it. “I entered these ruins, and I must not leave by myself.”

* * *

This section of the ruins feels like the most precarious by far. The jumps are further, at odder angles, than the ones that came before, and Ignis struggles as much with his nausea as he does with trying to decide if  _ this _ leap is the next one he should make. He verges on hatred for the way the world shifts around even if it is the only thing that keeps him from dying. 

Ignis eyes yet another stretch of ridiculously angled, rusted bars. This jump should be possible, with a bit of a running start. Ignis takes two careful steps back, steadies him with a long breath, and rushes forward. He springs off the edge and leaps—

—and screams when his foot catches between the bars when he lands on the other side. The snap of something inside his ankle echoes through the rest of his bones. Ignis collapses inelegantly as pain spikes down through his foot and up through his leg and into his hip.

“No,” he gasps, “no, no.” 

Working his foot free from the bars is an agony. Ignis’s vision swims, but he swallows down his retching. Once he is free, he tries to flex his foot, but the pain is knife-sharp and lungs-deep. 

When Ignis can breathe normally again, he pushes himself upright. His attempt to put weight on that foot lasts for less than a heartbeat. Ignis knows he could force himself to stand. He could even force himself to walk on it, if he must. But he would not be capable of making a jump that would allow him to keep going.

Ignis remembers trying to stop his slide down the goddess’s sword with his hands and arms. How the damage disappeared after Etro’s intervention. And so he clings tightly to that hope and falls off the edge.

_ Prompto’s blood burns hot under Ignis’s palms as it soaks through the impromptu field dressing. Ignis locks his elbows and leans up and over Prompto’s mangled thigh so he can press more of his weight down onto the deepest part of the wound. Theoretically, stopping a traumatic bleed is a simple matter of applying enough pressure in the right place and maintaining that pressure. He was taught that, so many years ago, as an emergency measure, should Noctis require care and he had no access to curatives. _

_ Ignis’s efforts are not enough, not when the truck they’re in the back of is careening down the mountain in a desperate attempt to get them away from the horde of daemons that ambushed them on the way out of the temple. He can’t apply steady pressure when he nearly loses his balance with every rock, hole, rise, and crevasse the truck hits as their hunter escort races to get them back to Fenestala Manor. _

_ Even in the weak, wildly swaying light from their clipped-on flashlights, it’s easy to see that Prompto has gone gray beneath his faded freckles. He still has a weak grip on the bag that contains the crumbling documents they’ve risked his life to obtain, and Ignis can’t read the ancient Tenebraen script well enough to be sure it was even worth it.  _

_ No. Don’t start down that path again.  _

_ Prompto will—they  _ all  _ will—be here when Noctis returns. They must. Ignis won’t allow otherwise. _

_ “Are all your tomb-raiding adventures this exciting?” Prompto manages to ask. Ignis can barely hear him over the cacophony of their descent. His breathing stutters, then resumes too fast and shallow.  _

_ Terror sinks its claws into Ignis’s throat. “Not normally, no. I thought you’d enjoy something a little less pedestrian than usual.” _

_ Prompto isn’t taking in enough air to laugh properly, but he tries. His head lists to the side when the hunter takes a sharp turn, and Ignis can’t see his expression properly anymore. _

_ The blood’s still coming. Ignis shifts to plant his knee on Prompto’s thigh and presses down with his entire weight. _

Ignis lands on both feet. A scream threatens to tear itself from his lungs, but not from pain. There isn’t any pain, and Ignis has no idea why his heart is racing in terror. It must—it must have been from his fall. 

He tests his ankle while he tries to get his heart to settle. It feels—normal. As if nothing ever happened to it. Uneasiness settles in his gut even though his gamble worked. What has he lost in exchange for another chance?

—what has he lost? 

The question rolls around in his skull like a bottle of broken glass. He bloodies himself trying to put them back together. He—must be searching for something about the prophecy. To save Noctis. Three years in, and they’re still trying to figure out what truly happened with—

No. No, he remembers—Gladio, and Prompto, and Ravus. Only—

Different. Older, somehow, and different. Why did they stay outside? Gladio would have never—

_ —while I’m gone. _

The shards bite deep. Ignis claws at his memories and uncovers a horrifying, corpse-like woman who sounds like the end of everything and promises a chance to bring Noctis back.

“I’m losing memories,” Ignis tells himself. The words are a thick reflex on his tongue. “I must not leave by myself.”

* * *

The columns aren’t so tall that a fall from one would guarantee injury, but they all are surrounded by burning spikes. Ignis takes each jump from column to crumbling column carefully, landing with both feet. He has prided himself on his accuracy since his trainee days. Perfection is impossible, but that does not stop him from striving for it. It does not stop him from falling short of it, either.

He puts too much force into his next jump and, even though his feet hit the mark, momentum carries him a half-step over the edge.

_ Gladio’s stitching is always quick, efficient, even when he’s fuming. Ignis clenches his jaw and reprimands himself for entertaining even an idle thought that Gladio would take out his temper on Ignis’s wound.  _

_ Ignis suppresses his flinches the best he can while Gladio closes up the gashes that still weep blood down the left side of his back. If it weren’t for the placement, Ignis would have mended them himself.  _

_ “You’re an asshole,” Gladio says conversationally. Ignis can feel the thread moving through his skin as Gladio tugs the wound closed and ties it off. “You think I want to tell Noct you died because you were stupid and kept sneaking off on your own?” _

_ Hearing Noct’s name aloud still hurts, like a portion of his heart has been ripped out and left empty. Ignis grits out, “You’re overexaggerating. I’m not about to die.” _

_ “Not this time,” Gladio agrees. He picks up the scissors and cuts the thread. “But surviving the Ring didn’t make you invincible, Iggy. For fuck’s sake, take one of us with you next time. We want to find a way to save Noct just as much as you do.”  _

* * *

“I must not leave by myself,” Ignis says. Even though his mouth is forming the words, they feel just beyond the reach of his comprehension. 

* * *

“I must not leave by myself.”

* * *

“I must not…”

* * *

_ “This is bullshit,” Gladio says. “Noct can’t just—” He cuts himself off, but he sounds like he’s two seconds from putting his fist through the barrack’s metal walls.  _

_ Prompto’s staring at him, face pale and drawn in sharp lines, and the desperation in his eyes is horribly familiar. “How do you know?” _

_ “The Oracle’s messenger, Pryna,” Ignis says. He swallows hard to clear his throat of the fear that so easily threatens to rise up and choke him. “Gave me a vision in Altissia. And here, after I arrived, there was a voice.” _

_ He relates everything he saw and heard in careful, neutral facts, not yet willing to speculate, not sure he  _ can  _ do any worthwhile speculation in his current state. Noctis kept him from dying, which is miracle enough. But exhaustion still sneaks up on him and knocks his feet out from under him. He is too weak to fight, and too weak to be at his best mentally, and he can ill afford both, not while they are still lurking in Zegnautus, waiting for some sign from the Crystal. _

_ “Scientia speaks the truth, or what I know of it,” Ravus says once Ignis has finished. His bitterness is carefully leashed but still plain for everyone to hear. “Lunafreya intended to tell your prince the truth of his destiny once they met. The price for ridding this world of the Starscourge is their lives.” _

_ “There’s gotta be another way,” Prompto insists. “We can’t just—fuck, we can’t just let him die like that.” _

_ “Hell no.” _

_ Ignis did not doubt them, but it is still a relief to hear them reject Noct’s destiny as thoroughly as he did. He traces the burn the Ring left on his hand absently and wonders just how long a time he bought them without Ardyn. “I agree,” Ignis says. “There must be some other way. And if there is not, we shall craft one ourselves.” _

Ignis sways on his feet. He isn’t sure how long it takes for the world to blink itself back into focus, only that it settles in unfamiliar lines. Where is he? This isn’t Zegnautus, that much is plain. At least not the portions of it he saw when he arrived.

Has Ardyn done something to him again? No—the Ring, he remembers the Ring, burning, Ardyn crumbling like ash, and then Noctis—

Ignis glances down at his hands and doesn’t understand how he has come to be wearing his Kingsglaive suit. He has no memory of putting it on. He was only supposed to wear it for Noct’s wedding.

Lady Lunafreya—

Where are Gladio and Prompto? They were—they were both there, they came  _ with  _ Noct. He knows he heard their voices even as his eyesight failed.

He feels—not drunk. Profoundly disoriented. Unmoored. Like there is only the thinnest connection between his head and his hands and his feet. If he breathes too deep the lines will fray.

There are stairs to his left. Ignis climbs them. His friends—must be somewhere. Perhaps they got separated. Yes. He just—needs to catch up. There is something  _ wrong _ here, in the air. He needs to find them. Protect them. 

There is a seal at the end of the landing. Ignis presses his right palm to it, then sways again when the ground rises. The landing they stop on shortly thereafter has a narrow passage carved through the rock. 

An exit. Sunlight, pale and golden, streams through it.

Ignis takes a step forward. Stops short of the light pooling on the stones. Sunlight?

_ There will be other sunsets, and better sunrises. Ones that he can share with— _

_ “Take care.” _

_ “Don’t come back empty-handed now, all right?” _

_ “Good luck in there. But just in case.” _

Just in case.

Ignis fumbles for his jacket pocket and pulls out a photograph.

It’s a candid picture. Him, without his glasses, hair down, in the t-shirt and sweatpants he only ever wears to sleep. Sitting on a double bed in a room he doesn’t recognize. 

Noctis is there, also in his pajamas. His black hair is a tangled mess, though part of that might be because Ignis’s bare fingers are combing through it. Noct is smiling faintly, eyes half closed, head resting on Ignis’s thigh, one hand curled over Ignis’s calf. 

Ignis turns the photograph over. Scribbled on the back, in a messy hand, are the words  _ FIND HIM. _

Noct.

He can’t leave by himself. Noct is—Noct is  _ here.  _

Ignis steps back. What has happened? Where is Noct?

It should worry him, how difficult it is to trace his memories back through the ruins. It should unnerve him, that it takes him a moment to put names to the changed faces he left behind at the entrance. 

It scares him, when he remembers:

_ “What is the trial?” _

_ A hunt, buried under Solheim’s folly. Find the True King before he passes through my gate, and bring him back into the sunlight. The trial ends only when the seeker chooses to abandon the hunt or to step through my gate.  _

Buried  _ under  _ Solheim’s folly.

The revelation burns bitter in his throat. Etro’s domain is somewhere down below. There is something he missed because he was too caught up in moving forward that he did not stop to  _ think. _

Noctis is dead. Noctis is waiting for him. Waiting for Ignis to bring him home.

Ignis slides the photograph back into his pocket. Then he turns away from the sunlight and heads back into the ruins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After sustaining a serious injury in a bad jump, Ignis realizes he can’t continue in the state he’s in. So he purposefully steps off the edge of the platform in the hopes that will give him a “reset” and get rid of the injury. Which it does!

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [tumblr](http://audreyskdramablog.tumblr.com/) & [twitter](https://twitter.com/audreyskdrama) if you like.


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